Online retailers you've been impressed or NOT impressed with this holiday season

[ekatiel]

After a little toy freak out session last night, I thought it might be a good idea to see what kinds of experiences people have had with different online retailers this year. I ordered almost all my kids' gifts online this year and here is my vote more "most impressed" and most "UNimpressed".

Most impressed: Walmart.com Seriously, I place an order and the thing is on my mom's doorstep two or three days later. Talk about efficiency. They've got their act together this year .

NOT impressed: Toysrus.com. I placed an order on 11/29. Half of the order just shipped yesterday. The other half of the order did not, so I called them, and the "supervisor", I use that term loosely, tried to cancel my order, saying it must have gotten lost (this was a Santa toy, BTW!!). Well, I got an email about an hour after our little conversation, where I told him that under NO circumstances was he to cancel my order. The toy finally shipped. So, 12 days after I placed the order, it has finally shipped.

So, how about for you? Which online retailers are on the naughty and nice list for you?? --Katie

 

[pantherlj]

fast shipping from everyone except kohls.com. I have known this for years so oder at great prices knowing it will take awhile.

Amazon.com is always awesome
casa.com for time ordering and very impressed with their fast shipping
landsend.com good as usual
buildasign.com - have had a few personalized bumper stickers made. all arrived very fast for a customer order and good quality

 

[sunshinehighway]

Most impressed: Yoyo.

I got an awesome Lego set for about half off (30% off Code and It was on sale to begin with) and the order arrived the next day with free shipping.

Least impressed: Disneystore

My order took two weeks to arrive. It sat over week before it was even processed for shipping. Their black Friday weekend coupon code wouldn't stack with free shipping over $75. It ended up being cheaper to use their 10% off Dvc code which did stack with ship today than 20% off black Friday code. I don't mind when multiple %off codes can't be used together but free shipping over a certain amount should work with any other offers, especially when you'll be waiting so long to actually receive the order.

 

[amomma23]

YoYo, Casa...all part of Amazon. Always great service for me, too.

Least impressed this year was Kohl's. I ordered a toy on cyberspace Monday, and received a tracking number on 11/29. I tracked the order several times, but it never changed from "a shipping label has been created". This past Friday I contacted them to see what was up. They said there was a shipping error, the item was no longer available and the would credit my account! What? Then I was told my "local" store had 4 in stock. I asked what store (our nearest location is 1.5 hours away) he gave me an address in Maryland and was surprised I hadn't heard of the town? Hello, I'm in Central PA! Eventually I was able to speak with someone else who found 1 closer, but what a headache

 

[wiigirl]

Amazon has been awesome for me....really fast shipping and sometimes free shipping.

 

[Ginny Favers]

Impressed: Amazon. They had some amazing sale prices on things and I saved a bundle, plus their shipping is the best. Toys R Us (through ebay)-- they sent an XBOX to me so quick and at a great price.

Unimpressed: Target. I placed an order for an XBOX and they sent NO confirmation. Meanwhile I found it at TRU cheaper and bought it there, then emailed Target that if they had the order, I was cancelling it. No response to that email. Target sent me the XBOX TWO WEEKS later! Also unimpressed with Sears and Kmart. They just never have low prices on anything I want.

 

[rszdtrvl]

That buildasign.com website is super cool. I have been wanting to find a site like that for a while to get a custom made street sign made for DH and the family.

Thanks!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Nice:

amazon.com Not only have they had a ton of great deals, but I think I paid a total of $3 shipping for more than 10 orders.

express.com Pretty fast deliveries, only problem is one item was accidentally ordered in the wrong size and we have to pay to ship it back.



Naughty:

disneystore.com Placed a rather large Black Friday order. Had lots of confusion with discount codes, finally had to call them to allow my $20 off code (it was a code I received when I pre ordered Brave on blu ray). I wasn't even sure which codes didn't work with others, since half were accepted half the time and some were at other times and it was just a big mess.

My order hadn't been marked as shipped 14 days later so I sent an email asking if they'd lost my order. They said they were just super busy and hadn't been able to ship yet so they gave me a $10 off gc for future use. Which was nice, but I think I was owed that $10 anyway because of all the confusion and difficulty of using codes on their website.

 

[Miss Peach]

Great--

Disney Store online. I had ordered a Dooney and Bourke purse on sale, and then using two codes, but later saw on DIS that there was an additional code I missed. I called CS and they layered it on top for me!

Good--

Amazon. Not the wonderful sale prices of years past, but excellent service as always.

Never again--

Sears online. It was an endurance test to get the correct price charged to me. The hours I spent straightening out their errors to get the $7.50 owed to me was enough to make me NEVER shop there again.

??--

Home Depot. Ordered a chest freezer for my daughter. She is going to flip. Still waiting for free delivery on the 21rst. But, WOW, what a great price!

 

[Kies99]

Semi-Unimpressed: Amazon. Ordered an item this past Saturday and on Sunday the price dropped. Called to have it adjusted and they couldn't do it because the order had moved to the shipping phase. However, they were able to cancel it and I went in re-ordered at lower price. Why they can't just adjust it is beyond me. Now I'll have to wait a couple days to get my money back.

Impressed: Improvements Catalog. Ordered an item knowing full well it wasn't available yet (currently scheduled for shipment on 12/14). They've been great with communication on this. Already had a couple of e-mails on different days explaining what was going on and if I wanted to cancel, letting me know what to do.

 

[MomToOne]

Only major headache I had this year was with Kohls, and it really wasn't completely Kohl's fault - UPS/USPS had some responsibility too. My order shipped, but it got lost somewhere in the handoff from UPS to USPS (I HATE that stupid Mail Innovations service). Kohls CS told me I had to go down to my post office to ask them about it before they would do anything more about it. Helloooo?? I have to stand in line an hour to ask about a package that is clearly lost???? Then, after I did that, they said it would take 3 weeks for them to take any further action on it while they did a "trace" (and the agent was quite rude in the process of starting that). But a trace never did show up in the UPS tracking information, so really, it was just an excuse to sit on the issue for 3 weeks. After a post to the Kohls facebook page, they FINALLY refunded my money because the item was out of stock by then. Sigh.

Other retailers I've ordered from this year with no problems:
- J&R: I actually ordered an out-of-stock item with some trepidation because they said they would have more stock "shortly" and it was a better deal than I could get anywhere else. I was pleasantly surprised when the item actually came back in stock a few days later and was quickly shipped.
- Barnes and Noble
- Brookstone: Got a deal on a somewhat obscure item I wanted thanks to the LivingSocial $50 for $25 deal they had. I was surprised when it shipped quickly, since I know they are sometimes a pain to deal with.
- Shoe Metro
- Tiger Direct
- Target
- QVC: I guess I'll put them in this group, since they ultimately delivered, although they were really slow to ship the item I bought. It took close to a week for them to ship it.

 

[mommy2twingles]

impressed: yoyo, casa, bookworm sites. Great coupons to try their sites and quick shipping. Just wish the selection was greater.

amazon for most things. I am still waiting on an item from 12/1 from a 3rd party in the next state over. Also annoyed that they would not honor their incorrect pricing on Ted this past weekend.

Disappointed:
Kohls for long shipping and horrible packaging
Sears- never again. Tried to order something for DH and they cancelled my order saying my card was denied. When I called them they said it was just out of stock but they tried to then charge my card 2 more times. Luckily the CC company called since all orders were within a few dollars of each other.

 

[chiefmickeymouse]

Unimpressed:

Kohls (seems to be a theme here, order took more than two weeks) and Hollister (hate them but DD just HAD to have a shirt for Christmas).

Mildly Unimpressed:

New Egg - I usually love them, but our last orders were really slow.

Amazon - ever since Prime came along my orders have been much slower, probably because I refuse to fork out the bucks for Prime! I find I order much less from Amazon these days.

Impressed:

I'm still waiting to be dazzled!

 

[shoney]

Unimpressed.... Kohls.com for me too. I just got 2 items yesterday from my Black Friday order. I guess I don't need it until xmas so I will keep long shipping times in mind for future orders.

Impressed... Cold water creek. never order from them. got 2 sweaters for gifts. Great prices and fast/free shipping

 

[kiki02]

Etsy: found the nicest wedding headwear and other items.

SO SO HAPPY

 

[richmond282]

Unimpressed:

Amazon- has been SLOW shipping for me. I also placed an order and like an hour later realized I had ordered the wrong thing so I tried to cancel the item. I got a message back that it was too late to cancel and the order was being processed. HOWEVER, it didn't ship for 3 more days AND was in the box with my replacement order. "Already being processed", my butt... how about too lazy to cancel?

Kohl's- has had some really great prices, but shipping has also been SLOW as well. Of coure, I think they always ship slow.

Impressed:

Timberland- shipped FAST and I caught a great sale

American Girl- I was fortunate enough to catch the great Today show deal from them last week. I am very impressed with how well they handled the rush and how quickly items actually shipped. I ordered on WEdnesday and got the bed on Monday (doll will be here soon too!)

 

[luvmy3]

I have been impressed with Amazon's, Target's, Kohl's and Sears' pricing but have only been impressed with Sears' shipping time. I have Amazon Prime so I can't really count them

 

[wdwcoltsfan]

Impressed:

NFLshop.com- superfast, free shipping

American Eagle- fast, free shipping

MLBshop.com- fast and free shipping

Best Buy- really fast shipping of Black Friday items and they were all free ship

Unimpressed:

Kohls- sloooow shipping and poor packaging.

Target- slow shipping

Amazon- I have prime, so shipping was fast, but they sent me the wrong item. Instead of my kindle, I received a wireless guitar for Guitar Hero. They did resolve the issue, but it took quite awhile and they didn't have a way for me to send back the item they sent me because there was no record of it being sent.

 

[Mel522]

Impressed: Amazon. I ordered Photoshop CS6 on cyber Monday. It was scheduled to arrive on Dec 6, but showed up on Dec 3.

Unimpressed: Disneystore.com. I've had a lot of trouble with codes recently. They will work one minute, then not after that. I had an order with all my codes in and correct, then I decided to add something. Couldn't get the codes to work again. Also never received my code for pre-ordering Brave.

 

[manhattanman]

After a little toy freak out session last night, I thought it might be a good idea to see what kinds of experiences people have had with different online retailers this year. I ordered almost all my kids' gifts online this year and here is my vote more "most impressed" and most "UNimpressed".



So, how about for you? Which online retailers are on the naughty and nice list for you?? --Katie

Unimpressed, toysrus.com. It is important to put the .com because it turns out toys r us and toys r us.com are two completely separate entities. Toysrus.com will NOT pricematch other online retailers even though toysrus runs incessant TV adds about " we will price match anything".

So I will have to ship some stuff back or suffer the indignity of paying 40% more for the stuff I already received.


Newegg was also really slow for some black-friday like items but I eventually got them. Anyone who does the ship to get it close and then hand it off to the US postal service is going to take forever.

Impressed, amazon is good and american girl work out well.